Testimony difficult for conflicted teen

Girlfriend of alleged shooter loses 'favorite uncle.'

April 20, 2012|LOU MUMFORD | South Bend Tribune

CASSOPOLIS — On the witness stand Friday in Cass County Circuit Court, Kalen Nickens, 19, of Dowagiac, described Darius Nickens as her “favorite uncle’’ and Jaren Wade, the man accused of shooting Darius Nickens to death last year, as her “best friend.’’

Edwin Johnson III, Wade’s attorney who summoned her to the stand, said he understood the difficulty of her situation. Although she portrayed both men in a good light, she agreed Wade and Darius had “no relationship’’ with one another, apparently because her uncle felt Wade didn’t treat her well.

“I think he (Wade) was wrong for what he did,’’ she said, referring to the April 13, 2011, shooting, “but, if it was up to me, I still love him.’’

Wade, 20, is facing seven felony counts, including first-degree murder, in the shooting death of the 28-year-old Nickens shortly after Nickens pulled up in a van in a driveway at 210 Grand Boulevard, Dowagiac. The residence occupied by Andre “Nook’’ Murff Jr. was the same location where Nickens and Wade had fought the night before during a dice game, with Wade receiving rug burns to his face as a result.

Kalen Nickens told Johnson she was unaware of any physical confrontation between the two prior to the dice-game incident. Also, she denied under cross examination by Cass Prosecutor Victor Fitz telling a county police officer Wade was physically abusive to her.

“I told her (the officer) he was possessive,’’ she said.

She said she and Wade “fought all the time’’ but she also claimed the two had periods in which they got along well. As for Darius Nickens, she cried as she talked of their relationship.

“He showed me love all the time. He was like my Dad,’’ she said.

Nickens was Johnson’s last witness before he rested his case, without calling Wade to the stand. Fitz rested earlier in the day, after playing for the jury recordings of a jail interview Wade had with Dowagiac police Detective Jarrid Bradford, a jail telephone conversation Wade had with a friend last October and 911 emergency calls reporting the shooting.

Johnson told the jury at the start of the trial there’s no question his client shot Nickens but he argued it wasn’t premeditated. Fitz, on the other hand, has attempted to show Wade’s motive was to avenge the beating he had endured the night before.

Among Johnson’s witnesses was Yvette Young, who said she picked up Wade after the dice game and noticed the injuries to his face. But Wade didn’t talk as if he was angry regarding the incident and, the following day, was “fine, happy, not upset,’’ she said, when she drove him back to the Grand Boulevard residence.

After she heard about the shooting, Young said Wade called but talked only briefly.